Wilting
by Cysha
Summary: Wither one-shot.


Wilting

The wedding ring glows despairingly on your finger. You stare down at it, a single golden band, glowing like a small flame in the light. You could rip it off your finger and simply discard it, in a futile effort of rebellion, to show your captors that you are a free human being. That you do not recognize your wedding, your marriage.

But that wouldn't get you anywhere. Instead, you simply stare dispassionately at the ring. It will remain in place, as everything else. It means so little to you, besides your lost freedom, but so much to everyone else. It means you are an asset, you will carry on the family line. It means you are a wife, to stand by your husband's side, hopefully on his arm during fanciful parties and banquets. Maybe you will become a first wife, always holding your husband's attention, always the favorite, always the first pick for outings. It means you are sisters to the other wives, spending your days on the wives floor, given 'happiness' and anything you've ever wanted. In exchange for freedom, of course. You don't care. It still means nothing to you.

The remnants of your wedding this evening still linger. There is much cleaning to do in the gardens now, after the party. But you still carry the wedding yourself. Your dress is still pulled tightly against your frame. It is white, shimmering, and beautiful. You do not belong in such a beautiful thing. It makes you look like a woman, a woman who has married and is ready to start a long life. But you are not in love. You never agreed to marry. And you certainly don't have a long life laid out in front of you. Only one that is drawing to a rapid close. Your feet ache from the tall heels strapped to your feet, but you make no move to take them off. You don't try to remove the makeup painted on your face, making your cheeks pink, your lips red, your eyelids scarlet. In fact, you make no move to do anything at all. You sit, beautiful, among luxury, and never raise a finger.

You feel hatred, but you never fight. You feel despair, but you never cry or scream. You want _out_ but you never beg. You don't have the strength. Or the willpower. You feel chained to this fate. You will never fight.

You are withering.

You have the potential to fight, the urge to tear the fake beauty forced upon your body, the need to rip apart this luxurious room that keeps you trapped. But you have no control over fate. Within days, you will reach your twentieth birthday. On that day, you will die. Or begin to. Slowly, as it already has, your body will wilt, consumed by the fate that takes the lives of every young person on this planet.

There are always hopes for an antidote. Hopes that maybe the human race can be saved, that children will stop dying, that they will grow old and live full lives. An antidote is always being searched for, deep within labs, hope never quite lost, though almost smothered. But you have no hope of living long enough for an antidote, if there is an antidote.

It makes no difference any longer. Years ago, had you been captured, maybe you would have fought. Maybe you would have spat in your husband's face, or torn the wedding dress to bits, or set fire to the gardens outside the window. But now, you are an old woman, sickly and approaching the fatal date when your body will fail. You will wait until that time; you will allow your body to succumb. Fighting death is not an option. Fighting at all has lost no meaning as you approach your birthday.

Days pass.

You remain in your room, waiting for the end to come. People notice something is wrong; what wife simply lounges on the couch all day in her room, staring at nothing? What wife doesn't try to get her husband's attention, in the effort of becoming first wife? What wife doesn't explore the new home she's been given, browsing through the massive library, running through the gardens, swimming through the pool? What wife barely makes an effort to eat, drink, live?

You have to smile in satisfaction. They never knew your true age, only knew your beauty, your worth. You were purchased to be the perfect bride for your husband, a pretty penny, no less. They knew you were older, but when you were captured, you seemed in full health. They never expected you to die so quickly on them. You were expected, at least, to live long enough to carry children.

It isn't long before you reach the date of your birthday. Death comes slowly. You began choking, coughing up your own blood. It's painful on the throat, and frightening, even to you, though you have no will left to try to survive. News that you are officially on death's door spreads through the household. Panic spreads soon after. You hear the whispers of sister wives that you have never come to know, wondering why the oldest, reclusive wife now appears to be dying. You husband and his family is frantic, wondering why the precious, costly, beautiful wife is dying. There is no news on an antidote.

Instead, they push medicine into you. They try to keep you alive with powerful potions and pills, and who knows what else. You don't swallow or drink them, but when forced, you don't fight. It is a tragedy even for you that nothing is working, because life is still precious. But suffering only continues.

In the end, you cannot be saved. Whatever they give you have stopped helping you at all, and they leave you to wilt. Before you go, you open the window, left unlocked for someone so helpless. You strip the ring from your finger and toss it out into the garden. It disappears among the bushes, falling to hide forever in the soil. You will die, only a chemical replica of what a twenty year old woman should be, a withered one at that, but you will not die a wife.


End file.
